12個(gè)月打造估值上千萬(wàn)的公司,只需要這9步!
你當(dāng)然想過(guò),我也想過(guò)。但我很懶,而且我還總是很自私地希望有人教我如何開(kāi)始——最好再傳授我一套按部就班走向成功的訣竅。我還幻想過(guò)得到某種能幫我獲得巨大財(cái)富的路線(xiàn)圖。 然而,這些年我開(kāi)始認(rèn)識(shí)到,根本沒(méi)有這樣的路線(xiàn)圖,也不存在成功創(chuàng)業(yè)的模式。 不過(guò),那些都只是我之前的想法,一周前我認(rèn)識(shí)了威廉,他是我見(jiàn)過(guò)最有意思的企業(yè)家。 威廉創(chuàng)辦的是我們都知道卻又不承認(rèn)用過(guò)的——吸引大量點(diǎn)擊的高訪(fǎng)問(wèn)量網(wǎng)站。實(shí)際上,他手上有很多這種網(wǎng)站。 他經(jīng)營(yíng)最成功一些網(wǎng)站已經(jīng)價(jià)值上百萬(wàn)美元,而啟動(dòng)資金只需要5000美元,花費(fèi)時(shí)間也只用幾個(gè)月,而且他用的都是同樣的模式。 順便說(shuō)一下,威廉不是他的真實(shí)姓名。他要我對(duì)姓名保守秘密。不過(guò),除了姓名之外我都會(huì)如實(shí)轉(zhuǎn)述。 我會(huì)從我收到他的第一封電郵開(kāi)始介紹,這樣大家就會(huì)明白我是為什么會(huì)驚訝的…… 電郵內(nèi)容 收件人:HOLLER@hustlecon.com 寄件人:一個(gè)我們之前從未見(jiàn)過(guò)的很隨意的電郵地址 你好, 我這幾個(gè)月一直在看貴網(wǎng)站The Hustle,真的很喜歡你們的工作。既然你們還在擴(kuò)大業(yè)務(wù),或許我能提供一些幫助? 我創(chuàng)辦過(guò)很多網(wǎng)站,其中不少市值上百萬(wàn)美元。我對(duì)數(shù)字媒體幾乎沒(méi)什么經(jīng)驗(yàn),也沒(méi)有為自己的網(wǎng)站生產(chǎn)任何內(nèi)容。我創(chuàng)造了一種嚴(yán)重依賴(lài)Facebook的模式,幫助我確認(rèn)應(yīng)該成立什么樣的網(wǎng)站,并且在網(wǎng)站上線(xiàn)開(kāi)始運(yùn)營(yíng)后導(dǎo)入大量流量。 舉個(gè)例子,我最成功的網(wǎng)站之一大概一年前上線(xiàn)。 上線(xiàn)以來(lái),網(wǎng)站的頁(yè)面瀏覽量累計(jì)超過(guò)1億次, 獨(dú)立訪(fǎng)問(wèn)用戶(hù)1300萬(wàn),僅上月就有350萬(wàn)獨(dú)立用戶(hù)。我沒(méi)有市場(chǎng)團(tuán)隊(duì)和銷(xiāo)售團(tuán)隊(duì),也沒(méi)有外部投資。這個(gè)網(wǎng)站的全職員工總共就兩人,一個(gè)是編輯,另一個(gè)是我的助手。我信賴(lài)你們的產(chǎn)品,想幫一幫你們。你們有沒(méi)有社交團(tuán)隊(duì),想不想聽(tīng)聽(tīng)建議? 我就住在貴司附近,我樂(lè)意親自上門(mén)和社交團(tuán)隊(duì)交流。你們干得很棒,希望保持下去。 祝好, 威廉 好吧,這封郵件看起來(lái)明顯是胡說(shuō)八道。 寫(xiě)信的人碰巧住在“附近”,而且還有一套能賺百萬(wàn)美元的秘訣。最重要的是,他提到的數(shù)字高得要命。 有些人可能不熟悉網(wǎng)站流量指標(biāo),我來(lái)說(shuō)明一下,一家成立才一年的網(wǎng)站能破億網(wǎng)頁(yè)瀏覽量,每月用戶(hù)350萬(wàn)人,這簡(jiǎn)直是逆天的成績(jī),更何況還沒(méi)有外部投資。 比較一下,美國(guó)知名科技財(cái)經(jīng)網(wǎng)站Business Insider花了一年時(shí)間才首次達(dá)到月度100萬(wàn)訪(fǎng)客的水平,而威廉的網(wǎng)站上個(gè)月就有350萬(wàn)獨(dú)立訪(fǎng)客了。 Business Insider目前有7000萬(wàn)月度用戶(hù),300多名員工,最近以接近5億美元的價(jià)格出售了。 大家聽(tīng)說(shuō)過(guò)網(wǎng)站BuzzFeed嗎? 上線(xiàn)兩年后,BuzzFeed月均用戶(hù)也不過(guò)70萬(wàn),眼下市值將近20億美元。 雖然懷疑威廉的說(shuō)辭有假,但他確實(shí)吸引了我的注意。假如他郵件中說(shuō)的并非虛言,我不但想要他提供建議,還想了解他創(chuàng)業(yè)的故事。 于是,我回復(fù)郵件約他見(jiàn)面。 會(huì)面 威廉幾天后造訪(fǎng)我們的辦公室。他挺和善,講話(huà)帶著濃重的荷蘭口音,留著一頭沖浪者風(fēng)格的發(fā)型。 我們聊了幾分鐘威廉的童年(他15歲在阿姆斯特丹上高中時(shí)輟學(xué),做了一名音樂(lè)主持人和工作經(jīng)歷(有段時(shí)間他專(zhuān)門(mén)操辦組織派對(duì)),以及他怎么聽(tīng)說(shuō)我們網(wǎng)站(去年他參加了我們?yōu)榉强萍紭I(yè)初創(chuàng)公司舉辦的會(huì)議Hustle Con)。 短暫的寒暄和了解結(jié)束后,我沒(méi)有浪費(fèi)什么時(shí)間,直奔重點(diǎn)。 看看流量數(shù)字到底真的假的! 威廉登陸了谷歌的網(wǎng)站流量分析工具Google Analytics,立即證明了之前我以為不可能實(shí)現(xiàn)、或者至少是夸大其辭的數(shù)字并非虛報(bào)。 破億的頁(yè)面瀏覽量?看看下圖是不是。 網(wǎng)站上線(xiàn)一年后擁有350萬(wàn)月度訪(fǎng)客?查一查就知道。 威廉用Excel表格做了這張?jiān)禄钴S用戶(hù)數(shù)據(jù)表給我看。 然后我們開(kāi)始談起營(yíng)業(yè)收入。和我期待的一樣,威廉相當(dāng)坦誠(chéng)。他每月投入3萬(wàn)美元,盈利22萬(wàn)美元。由于廣告是主要收入來(lái)源,從網(wǎng)站流量來(lái)看,這說(shuō)得通。 22萬(wàn)美元一個(gè)月的利潤(rùn)看上去有點(diǎn)高,但只要用簡(jiǎn)單的數(shù)學(xué)運(yùn)算就能證明并不夸張。 2015年,該網(wǎng)站展示廣告的平均CPM(每千人成本)為2.8美元。用戶(hù)突破1億之后,每條廣告的年度CPM超過(guò)了28萬(wàn)美元(折算月均23美元)。 而且威廉在每個(gè)頁(yè)面都投入了多個(gè)廣告,還在用電郵發(fā)布的通訊里出售廣告空間(這么做利潤(rùn)高得多),又只有兩名全職員工,威廉的盈利無(wú)疑很高。 秘訣 我問(wèn)威廉的最后一個(gè)問(wèn)題是“秘訣”。他起初在自己的電郵里提到過(guò),此后又提到幾次,可我需要更多的細(xì)節(jié)。 他說(shuō),賺錢(qián)的秘訣是他剛開(kāi)始成立幾個(gè)網(wǎng)站之后創(chuàng)造的,稱(chēng)得上是無(wú)心插柳。剛開(kāi)始,他對(duì)數(shù)字媒體知之甚少,完全依靠對(duì)Facebook的了解起步。 威廉堅(jiān)信摸索出的秘訣有效,自稱(chēng)成立的所有價(jià)值百萬(wàn)美元網(wǎng)站都運(yùn)用了這一模式。 可他也一直認(rèn)為,自己取得成功靠的是辛苦工作,就算將秘訣公之于眾也不太擔(dān)心別人山寨。 于是,我問(wèn)他愿不愿意和大家分享模式。 女士們先生們……以下就是威廉創(chuàng)造百萬(wàn)美元生意的奇跡模式: 第一步:選十個(gè)小眾市場(chǎng) 這些市場(chǎng)必須面向有激情、愿意投入的客戶(hù)群。威廉列舉了一些有這類(lèi)特征的客戶(hù)群,比如綜合格斗的粉絲、電子競(jìng)技迷,以及熱門(mén)美劇《權(quán)力的游戲》的觀(guān)眾。 威廉過(guò)去嘗試過(guò)針對(duì)某些群體但最終失敗,包括摔跤比賽愛(ài)好者、說(shuō)唱樂(lè)迷和熱心政治的人。失敗的原因包括用戶(hù)參與度不夠,市面上同質(zhì)化網(wǎng)站太多等等。 第二步:給每個(gè)市場(chǎng)做一個(gè)Facebook粉絲主頁(yè) 打廣告買(mǎi)Facebook點(diǎn)贊數(shù)。 比方說(shuō),你選擇綜合格斗的粉絲作為目標(biāo)客戶(hù),主頁(yè)就應(yīng)該起名為“MMA粉絲”或者比較通用一些名稱(chēng)。 威廉對(duì)每個(gè)小眾市場(chǎng)都投入約200美元,但具體投入多少資金不是重點(diǎn),只要保證對(duì)各市場(chǎng)持續(xù)投入就行。 為什么?因?yàn)樵谶@個(gè)過(guò)程里你要只需要找出“贏(yíng)家”,也就是找到某個(gè)用戶(hù)參與度最高、獲取點(diǎn)贊成本最少的市場(chǎng)。威廉說(shuō),如果不超過(guò)5美分就能買(mǎi)到點(diǎn)贊,這個(gè)市場(chǎng)就很可能有利可圖。而他獲利最多的網(wǎng)站只需要1美分就能贏(yíng)得點(diǎn)贊。 第三步:把別人的內(nèi)容轉(zhuǎn)貼到自己的網(wǎng)頁(yè) 既然還屬于“實(shí)驗(yàn)階段”,也就沒(méi)必要放上什么有突破性的內(nèi)容。事實(shí)上,只要把類(lèi)似網(wǎng)頁(yè)的內(nèi)容直接盜用過(guò)來(lái)即可。威廉一開(kāi)始就是這么做的。 “剛開(kāi)始做網(wǎng)站的Facebook主頁(yè)時(shí),我的英語(yǔ)還不夠好,沒(méi)法自己寫(xiě)說(shuō)明。更大的問(wèn)題是,我并不真正了解目標(biāo)客戶(hù)群。所以,我會(huì)照類(lèi)似的Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè),看哪些帖子受歡迎,然后直接拷貝過(guò)來(lái),貼在我的主頁(yè)上?!?/p> 第四步:選一個(gè)市場(chǎng)“贏(yíng)家”,買(mǎi)下域名,通過(guò)博客平臺(tái)WordPress創(chuàng)建網(wǎng)站 這一步要讓創(chuàng)業(yè)開(kāi)始成型。你已經(jīng)能選定市場(chǎng),現(xiàn)在需要的只是一個(gè)網(wǎng)站,把文章都貼在上面。 威廉對(duì)搭建網(wǎng)站不是很在行。幸運(yùn)的是,這也有模式可循?!艾F(xiàn)如今,成立并經(jīng)營(yíng)一家網(wǎng)站再簡(jiǎn)單不過(guò)。登陸域名注冊(cè)網(wǎng)站GoDaddy買(mǎi)一個(gè)域名,那里的域名支持WordPress的主機(jī)空間。主機(jī)空間服務(wù)每月要花5美元。GoDaddy會(huì)提供支持WordPress網(wǎng)站的環(huán)境?!?/p> “然后就去交易網(wǎng)站主題的平臺(tái)www.themeforest.net,選一個(gè)喜歡的‘主題’,費(fèi)用在40到60美元不等。我通常會(huì)去自由職業(yè)者服務(wù)的市場(chǎng)Upwork或者Elance,請(qǐng)一位收費(fèi)較低的開(kāi)發(fā)者幫我安裝主題,做好網(wǎng)站上線(xiàn)的準(zhǔn)備工作?!?/p> 第五步:請(qǐng)一位編輯,開(kāi)始每天貼兩三篇文章 威廉在Upwork上聘請(qǐng)了一位編輯。 這是一個(gè)全職崗位,但可以遠(yuǎn)程工作(在他最新成立的網(wǎng)站,那位全職編輯本人住在紐約。)。 網(wǎng)站運(yùn)營(yíng)之初,要做的只是尋找能盡量吸引最多點(diǎn)擊的內(nèi)容。 “我之前通過(guò)觀(guān)察其他Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè)找出那些內(nèi)容做得好。和這種做法類(lèi)似,我會(huì)搜索其他網(wǎng)站,挑出其中點(diǎn)擊量最高的文章,然后把鏈接發(fā)給編輯,讓他寫(xiě)一篇同樣題材的文章。編輯有時(shí)會(huì)親自操刀,也可能把分派給在Upwork網(wǎng)站找活的自由撰稿人?!?/p> 初步計(jì)劃是每天發(fā)布兩三篇文章,所有文章都要在Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè)分享。 “一開(kāi)始生產(chǎn)內(nèi)容,你就要保證安裝了Google Analytics,這樣能查看各篇文章的點(diǎn)擊量。不要只看某個(gè)頁(yè)面的點(diǎn)擊量,要留意訪(fǎng)客在該頁(yè)面逗留多久,以及瀏覽內(nèi)容以后是直接關(guān)閉網(wǎng)站頁(yè)面,還是點(diǎn)擊其他文章的鏈接。數(shù)據(jù)會(huì)告訴你讀者喜歡什么內(nèi)容。” 第六步:創(chuàng)建(如果這類(lèi)頁(yè)面不存在)或者購(gòu)買(mǎi)(如果有現(xiàn)成頁(yè)面出售)更有針對(duì)性的Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè) 這無(wú)疑是最重要的一步。走到這一步意味著,地基已經(jīng)打好,要建房了。 “我說(shuō)‘更有針對(duì)性的’Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè),意思是在你服務(wù)的整個(gè)市場(chǎng)之中更細(xì)分的小眾市場(chǎng)。比如你創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)罪案類(lèi)電視劇粉絲的網(wǎng)站,你就會(huì)想推出或者(從現(xiàn)有網(wǎng)頁(yè)所有者手中)買(mǎi)下頁(yè)面,專(zhuān)門(mén)面向《犯罪現(xiàn)場(chǎng)調(diào)查》、《法律與秩序》等大熱劇的劇迷?!?/p> 雖然我不能透露威廉最成功的那些網(wǎng)站到底叫什么名字,也不能告訴大家針對(duì)哪些市場(chǎng),但我可以說(shuō)那些網(wǎng)站相當(dāng)于不僅擁有《犯罪現(xiàn)場(chǎng)調(diào)查》和《法律與秩序》粉絲頁(yè)面,還囊括其他每部罪案電視劇的粉絲頁(yè)面。 以下是威廉所做的更有“針對(duì)性”的一個(gè)粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè)。 這個(gè)客戶(hù)群分享的所有鏈接都將用戶(hù)導(dǎo)向威廉的網(wǎng)站,而這只是小眾市場(chǎng)里多個(gè)頁(yè)面之一,所以威廉的網(wǎng)站吸引巨大的流量的潛力就顯而易見(jiàn)了。 別忘了,最初的測(cè)試已經(jīng)證明這些粉絲很有激情,參與度高。那么應(yīng)該相信他們會(huì)點(diǎn)擊這些鏈接。 我問(wèn)威廉,能不能看一下實(shí)時(shí)流量,以便了解這種Facebook模式有多大的威力。 如下圖所示,在網(wǎng)站的2224名訪(fǎng)客之中,有1673人由Facebook引導(dǎo)而來(lái)(占比約75%)。 全年的流量來(lái)源看來(lái)也和實(shí)時(shí)來(lái)源相似。 第七步:聘請(qǐng)自由職業(yè)者加快生產(chǎn)內(nèi)容 “有了我自己控制的Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè)之后,最重要的就是提供足夠的內(nèi)容滿(mǎn)足用戶(hù)的需求?!?/p> 為此,威廉聘請(qǐng)了自由職業(yè)撰稿人。 撰稿人寫(xiě)每篇文章收10美元,單篇文章的篇幅必須不少于350字,目標(biāo)是每天發(fā)布30篇文章。 第八步:培養(yǎng)自給自足的系統(tǒng),開(kāi)始將網(wǎng)站的盈利用于自身發(fā)展。 將網(wǎng)站展示廣告獲得的收入用于購(gòu)買(mǎi)Facebook的廣告。通過(guò)廣告吸引更多客戶(hù)加入Facebook粉絲專(zhuān)頁(yè),為網(wǎng)站帶來(lái)更多的流量,進(jìn)一步提高廣告收入,然后再用將廣告收入買(mǎi)Facebook的廣告。 第九步:離開(kāi)Facebook之后如何成長(zhǎng) “沒(méi)有模式能一成不變,這種策略也不例外。就像谷歌按點(diǎn)擊付費(fèi)的在線(xiàn)廣告Google Adwords一樣,F(xiàn)acebook廣告的成本也會(huì)上升到一定水平,屆時(shí)這種策略就沒(méi)法盈利了。因此,要?jiǎng)?chuàng)建一個(gè)電郵發(fā)件名錄,并且在生產(chǎn)內(nèi)容時(shí)考慮到SEO(搜索引擎優(yōu)化)。當(dāng)現(xiàn)有模式不能持續(xù)時(shí),這兩種方法還是能保證盈利。否則更簡(jiǎn)單,在模式失效賣(mài)掉網(wǎng)站?!?/p> “一般等到Facebook模式無(wú)法帶來(lái)增長(zhǎng)時(shí),我的網(wǎng)站已經(jīng)很值錢(qián)了?!?/p> 經(jīng)驗(yàn)教訓(xùn) Facebook剛剛修改了動(dòng)態(tài)消息的演算法,這已經(jīng)不是秘密。可能今后還會(huì)改。此舉說(shuō)明,像威廉那樣依靠外部平臺(tái)推動(dòng)流量存在風(fēng)險(xiǎn),很可能這種模式的好日子已經(jīng)過(guò)去了。 但這篇文章討論的不是賺錢(qián)模式,不是嗎?核心是威廉。 這篇文章的重點(diǎn)是一個(gè)人創(chuàng)建了大多數(shù)人都覺(jué)得很低級(jí),一點(diǎn)也不重要的網(wǎng)站。而他卻憑借這種網(wǎng)站累積了巨大財(cái)富。我發(fā)現(xiàn)他的職業(yè)道德和思維方式很吸引人。我甚至有些希望過(guò)那種生活。 同時(shí),機(jī)械地開(kāi)拓業(yè)務(wù)不太像我喜歡創(chuàng)業(yè)方式。也許我更喜歡有創(chuàng)意的創(chuàng)業(yè)方式,總是執(zhí)行沒(méi)法給我?guī)?lái)想出新點(diǎn)子的快感。又或者我只是討厭一味吸引點(diǎn)擊量的網(wǎng)站。 且不論我喜不喜歡,至少威廉的故事已經(jīng)證明,賺百萬(wàn)美元未必需要多么天才的創(chuàng)意。有時(shí),你需要的只是一個(gè)可操作的流程。一切都從邁出第一步開(kāi)始。(財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)) 譯者:Pessy 校對(duì):夏林 |
Of course you have. Me too. But I’m lazy. And selfishly, I’ve always hoped someone would give me the formula for getting started — a recipe to follow, step-by-step. I’ve dreamed of being shown some kind of a roadmap to millions. However, over the years I began to realize that there is no roadmap. The formula for building a successful business doesn’t exist. That is, until a week ago, when I was introduced to William, one of the most interesting business owners I’ve ever met. William is the founder of something we all know about but refuse to admit we use: a clickbait website. In fact, he’s started multiple. His most successful sites are worth millions of dollars, they only require $5k (and a couple months of William’s time) to launch, and are built using the same exact formula. William isn’t his real name, by the way. He asked that I keep that a secret. But everything else he told me, I’m telling you. I’ll begin with the first email I received from him, which as you will see, took me by surprise… The email To: HOLLER@hustlecon.com From: A totally random email we had never seen before Hello, I’ve been reading The Hustle for months and really love what you guys are doing. As you continue to grow your business, perhaps I could be of assistance? I’ve started numerous websites, many of which are worth millions of dollars. I have very little experience in digital media and produce none of the content on my websites myself. Instead, I have developed a formula, which relies heavily on Facebook, that helps me identify the right types of websites to build and drives lots of traffic to them once they’re up and running. As an example, one of my most successful websites was launched approximately a year ago. Since then, I’ve had over 100 million pageviews and 13 million unique users. Last month I had 3.5 million uniques alone. I have no marketing team, no sales team, and no investment money. A total of two people are employed full-time for this site. One is an editor and the other is my assistant. I really believe in your product and would love to help you guys. Do you have a social team that would want some advice? I live nearby so I’d love to come in and meet the team. Keep up the great work. Best, William Alright, so obviously this reeked of bullshit. The guy happened to live “nearby” and had a formula for making millions of dollars. Worst of all, the numbers were outlandishly high. For those unfamiliar with web traffic metrics, 100+ million total pageviews and 3.5 million monthly users a year after launching is insane, especially with no investment. As a comparison, it took Business Insider over a year to reach its first one million monthly users (again, last month William had 3.5 million). Business Insider now has 70 million users a month, 300+ employees, and recently sold for close to $500 million. Ever heard of BuzzFeed? Two years after launching, BuzzFeed was averaging just700k monthly users. Now it’s worth close to $2 billion. So, despite being suspicious of William’s claims, he had certainly caught my attention. If this guy was telling the truth, not only did I want his advice, but also his story. I wrote back, telling him I’d love to meet. The meeting William came to our office a few days later. He was a nice guy, with a thick Dutch accent and great surfer-style hair. We talked for a few minutes about William’s childhood (he dropped out of high school in Amsterdam at 15 to become a DJ), his past work experience (he was a party planner for years), and how he had heard about us (he attended Hustle Con last year). After the small talk ended, I wasted very little time in getting to the good stuff. Let’s see those traffic numbers! William logged into Google Analytics and instantly confirmed what I thought was impossible, or at least an exaggeration. 100+ million pageviews? Check. 3.5 million monthly users a year after launch? Check. William converted MAU data from Excel to create this graph for me Then we started talking about revenue. As I’d come to expect, William was incredibly transparent. Each month, he invests $30k into the business and makes $220k in profit. Advertisements are his main revenue stream, which would make sense considering the traffic numbers. And while $220k a month seemed a little high at first, some simple math proved it was actually quite realistic. The average CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) for display ads in 2015 was $2.80. With 100+ million users, that’s over $280k annually from one ad alone (and $23k per month). Considering he features multiple ads on each page, sells ad space on his email newsletter (which is much more lucrative), and only has two full-time employees to pay, William’s numbers add up. The formula The final question I had for William was about “the formula.” He had initially mentioned it in his email and it had come up a few times since, but I needed more details. He said this formula was something he had created, almost unintentionally, after starting his first few websites. He knew very little about digital media in those early days, relying entirely on his understanding of Facebook FB -0.14% instead. He was adamant about its effectiveness and said that every million-dollar website he had created was started using the formula. But he also maintained that it was his own hard work that led to his success and that he wasn’t too worried about copycats if he were to divulge the recipe. So, I asked him if he would. Ladies and gentlemen… the pathway to millions: Step 1: Select 10 niche markets The groups of people must be passionate and engaged. Some examples William gave were MMA fans, eSports fans, and people who watch Game of Thrones. A few that he had tried in the past that hadn’t ended up working out included wrestling fans, hip-hop fans, and politics. Reasons for failure included lack of engagement and too many existing websites serving the same purpose. Step 2: Create a Facebook Fan Page for each market Start advertising in order to buy Facebook likes. For instance, if you chose MMA fans as your target demographic, the page should be called, “Fans of MMA” or something just as non-specific. William spends around $200 on each niche market, but the number doesn’t matter so long as you keep it consistent across the board. Why? Because all you’re doing here is trying to identify your “winner,” which is whatever niche market produces the highest engagement and lowest cost of likes. William said that it’s a great sign if you’re able to buy likes for under five cents. However, his most profitable site was able to buy likes for a penny. Step 3: Post other people’s content on your pages Since this is still the “testing phase,” your content doesn’t need to be groundbreaking. In fact, feel free to straight up steal it from similar pages if you want. That’s what William did initially. “When I first started doing this, I didn’t speak English well enough to make my own captions. On top of that, it wasn’t like I really knew anything about the groups of fans I was targeting. So, I would find similar Facebook Fan Pages, see which posts were doing well, copy them exactly, and post them in mine.” Step 4: Pick a winner, buy a domain, and build the WordPress site Here’s where things start to take shape. You’ve selected the market you’re going to create content for, now all you need is the website where you’ll be posting your articles. William doesn’t know much about building websites. Thankfully, there’s a formula for that, too. “Getting a website up and running is incredibly easy nowadays – and cheap. Go to GoDaddy and buy a domain name, which comes with WordPress hosting. It’s like $5 a month. GoDaddy installs WordPress for you.” “Then, go to a site like www.themeforest.net and pick out a ‘theme’ that you like. These cost anywhere from $40 to $60. I’ll usually hire a developer for cheap on Upwork or Elance to install the theme and get the site ready for launch.” Step 5: Hire an editor and start posting 2-3 articles per day William uses Upwork to hire an editor. This is a full-time position but can be done remotely (the editor for his newest site is based out of New York). In the beginning, it’s all about finding the type of content that gets the most clicks. “Similarly to the way I look at other Facebook Fan Pages to see what content is doing well, I’ll research other websites and pick their best-performing articles. Then I send the links to my editor and tell them to write an article on the same exact topic. She’ll write the article, or she’ll assign it to one of her Upwork writers.” The expectation is 2-3 articles per day to start, all shared on the Facebook Fan Page. “Once you start producing content, make sure you have Google Analytics installed so you can see how certain articles are performing. Don’t just look at the number of clicks to a specific page. Look at how long users are on the page and whether or not they click to another page or leave the site. Let the data speak to what the readers like.” Step 6: Create (if they don’t exist) or buy (if they do) more targeted Facebook Fan Pages This is, without a doubt, the most crucial step. The foundation has been laid, now it’s time to build the house. “When I say ‘more targeted’ Facebook Fan Pages, I mean more specific niches within the overall market you’re serving. For example, if you’ve created a website for fans of crime TV shows, you want to start creating or buying (from current owners) the pages for fans of CSI, Law & Order, etc.” Though I can’t divulge the name of William’s most successful website or the market it caters to, I can tell you that it’s comparable to someone owning the fan pages for not only CSI and Law & Order fans, but of every single crime show on television. Here’s an example of one of William’s more “targeted” fan pages: Every link shared in this group leads back to William’s site. It’s also one of many within this niche market, so the potential for huge traffic numbers is abundantly clear. And remember, the original test was to prove that these fans are passionate and engaged. So, you better believe they’re clicking on the links. I asked if we could take a look at real-time traffic to see just how powerful this Facebook model was. As you can see, 1,673 out of the 2,224 people on the site had arrived via Facebook (roughly 75%). The traffic sources over the course of a full year looked similar: Step 7: Hire freelancers to ramp up content production “Once I have the Facebook Fan Pages under my control, the most important thing is to provide enough content to satisfy people’s needs.” To do this, William hires freelance writers. Each writer is paid $10 per article and each article must be at least 350 words. The goal is 30 articles per day in total. Step 8: Start investing money back into the business in order to build a self-sustaining ecosystem Invest money from display ads on the website into buying Facebook advertisements. As more people join the Facebook Fan Pages via these ads, more traffic comes to the site and more ad revenue is generated, which is then invested back into Facebook advertisements. Step 9: Life after Facebook “Nothing lasts forever and this strategy is no exception. Just like with Google Adwords, the cost of Facebook Ads will increase to a point where this strategy simply does not work anymore. So building an email list and thinking about SEO when crafting content is important, and both will be beneficial when that day arrives. Or you could always sell your site before that happens.” “By the time this Facebook model becomes ineffective for growth, my websites are normally worth a good deal of money.” Takeaway It’s no secret that Facebook just changed its News Feed algorithm — and probably will again in the future. This illustrates the danger in relying on an outside platform to drive traffic like William does, and most likely means that this formula has already seen its best days. But this story isn’t about the formula, is it? It’s about William. It’s about a guy who creates websites that most of us ignore because they look sleazy and aren’t something to be proud of. However, he is making massive amounts of money doing it and I find his work ethic and mindset to be fascinating. Part of me wants to live that life. At the same time, building businesses in machine-like fashion just doesn’t seem like something I’d enjoy doing. Perhaps I’m more of the creative type and just don’t get the same thrill out of execution that I do from generating new ideas. Or maybe I just hate clickbait sites. Regardless, William’s story proves that you don’t need some genius idea to make millions of dollars. Sometimes, all you need is a process. And it all starts with Step #1. |
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